New asteroid to narrowly miss Earth today

An asteroid 10 - 15 meters across will pass by the Earth at just more than one-third of the distance between the Earth and the Moon on Wednesday. That's the closest near-Earth object approach currently known between now and the flyby in 2024 of a similarly sized object known as 2007 XB23.

The new asteroid, called 2010 AL30, was discovered by the NASA-funded Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research program, and announced Monday by the Minor Planet Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

The short amount of time between the spotting of the object and its near intersection with Earth is a good reminder that humans don't know every object that could come hurtling out of space and collide with our planet.

"Visitors frequently ask me if I worry about the near-Earth objects that I measure," wrote Dr. P. Clay Sherrod of the Arkansas Sky Observatories, on a forum thread discussing the asteroid. "My response: 'I don't worry about those that we keep up with; I am more concerned about the ones we never see coming."

It should be noted that an asteroid this small probably wouldn't cause major damage were it to impact Earth's atmosphere, and would more likely burn up before it reached the planet's surface.

Update: A team of Italian astronomers caught the passing asteroid on camera. Head over to Wired.com to check out the footage.

Edited by Nate Lanxon

Comments

Quick! Send in Bruce Willis, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck and a comedy Russian stereotype in a space shuttle that can fly aerobatics in the vacuum of space! GOD BLESS USA!

David Rowan

Jan 13th 2010

we could never afford their appearance fees Chris and have money left for a working spacecraft.